Our lettuce may not be pretty, but it tastes darn good.

We've been planting lots of lettuce out at the farm, and you'll be getting plenty of leafy green goodness in a month or so. While it's growing, we thought we'd take a second to tell you a bit about our lettuce.

Whether you normally wander the grocery store of the farmers' market, you've probably noticed two kinds of lettuce. The big, beautiful heads of lettuce that look green, delicious and like they're screaming to come home with you, and the individual leaf lettuces that are often sold in bunches, bags or boxes. At Edible Old Dominion we mostly grow leaf lettuces. When leaf lettuce grows, sunlight touches every part of the leaf, making for a bold, consistent flavor. When head lettuce grows, the sun often doesn't touch the bottom of the leaves, making for inconsistent flavor that's often milder or bitterer at the base. Therefore, we stick with leaf lettuces like arugula and mesclun mix. We feel like the end product is better.

We don't use any pesticides here at Edible Old Dominion, and leaf lettuces are very attractive to flea beetles. These little bugs like to snack on our leaves as they grow, and they take tiny bites out of our lettuces. The little bugs don't have any impact on the deliciousness of our greens, but their pesky snacking leaves tiny holes in our lettuces, making them less attractive than your average commercially grown green.

So, what this boils down to is that when you get your lettuce from Edible Old Dominion, it may not be as pretty as those big, green heads of lettuce you see elsewhere, but the flavor will shine above the rest. Plus, you'll know it's organic. We can't wait for all our lettuces to be ready!